Inbox/Outbox: May 10, 2013

Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood–I don’t know about you, but I’m relatively certain that New Margaret Atwood Book Day is the best day in any reader’s year. Maddaddam, the final book in the titular trilogy, drops on September 3rd, and who are we kidding, there’s no way I’m going to wait until anywhere near the publication date to gobble it up. Rounding out the stories and characters we first met in Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, which aren’t so much a book and its sequel as they are “meanwhiles” for each other, this one picks up months after a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. Ain’t no dystopian speculative fiction party like a Margaret Atwood dystopian speculative fiction party, and I’m not going to lie, I totally squealed when this one came in the mail.

Red Moon by Benjamin Percy–Literary writing with werewolves! Get excited, y’all, there’s something to keep us busy while we wait for Glen Duncan’s final Last Werewolf book. This book seems to have sprung up out of nowhere and become one of the buzziest titles of the spring. I’m studiously avoiding reviews and watching my friends rave about it on Twitter. I can’t wait to take a big old bite (get it?) out of this during the next full moon.

Outbox (Books Finished)

The Angel by Tiffany Reisz–This is the second book in Tiffany Reisz’s Original Sinners series, and it’s even more down-and-dirty than the first (The Siren), which I devoured on a recent trip. Recommending romance and erotica is a challenge, seeing as how sexytime-related preferences are so personal and unique to each individual, so I’m still figuring out how to talk about these books. This is a story about a dominatrix who is also a writer, who has spent decades as the submissive in a Dominant/submissive relationship with an uber-hottie who is also a priest. There are scandals and whippings aplenty, and I’m finding that even though I don’t love *all* the sex scenes, there’s more than enough flavor here to keep me interested and turning the pages.

In the Queue

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill–When fellow Rioter Amanda read this, she advised, “Buy, and then read it with the lights on and your children lock in a closet.” That’s a helluva blurb! All the talk about NOS4A2 is about how awesome it is, and I have to confess that that is basically all I know about it. I mean, I’m assuming from the title that it has something to do with vampires, and yeah, I know that it’s going to be scary. But the rest of it is going to be a complete surprise! It’s rad when that happens, and it’s so hard to pull off when you live in the bookternet. Scare me, Joe! Let’s do this.